The Sunless Countries: Book Four of Virga

Written by Karl Schroeder

Narrated by Joyce Irvine and David Thorn

The Sunless Countries is the fourth novel in the Virga series of hard science fiction space opera adventures

In an ocean of weightless air where sunlight has never been seen, only the running lights of the city of Pacquaea glitter in the dark. One woman, Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, lives and dreams of love among the gaslit streets and cafés. And somewhere in the abyss of wind and twisted cloud through which Pacquaea eternally falls, a great voice has begun speaking.

As its cold words reach from space to the city walls—and as outlying towns and travelers' ships start to mysteriously disappear—only Leal has the courage to try to understand the message thundering from the distance. Even the city's most famous and exotic visitor, the sun lighter and hero named Hayden Griffin, refuses to turn aside from his commission to build a new sun for a foreign nation. He will not become the hero that Leal knows the city needs; so it is up to her to listen, and ultimately reply, to the voice of the worldwasp—because an astonishing disaster threatens Virga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Aug 4, 2009
• ISBN: 9781427206954

Karl Schroeder

KARL SCHROEDER is a professional futurist as well as one of Canada's most popular science fiction and fantasy authors. He divides his time between writing and conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. He is the author of The Million, as well as a half-dozen previous SF novels.

Reviews for The Sunless Countries

[sami7-951065 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A nice adventure that never follows the expected path.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While it would probably have helped if I had read these books in a more timely fashion I'd be willing to argue that this is where the series went off the rails, in that instead of building on the dramatic crisis set at Candesce itself in the third book, one takes a side trip as a way for Schroeder to explicate on the deep history of Virga and the roots of the emergency facing its inhabitants. That said I like the character of Leal Maspeth and it would have been better if Schroeder had found a way to introduce her, say, in at least the second book.

[alanpoulter_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Most series tend to ossify into a predictable pattern, since readers and author find a comfortable niche from which there is little incentive to stray. The Virga series is an exception. Set inside a giant balloon, wooden human settlements float in oxygenated space. Previous books in this series have explored the conflicts between these and also suggested that Candesce, the biggest artificial sun in Virga, somehow protects humans from whatever is outside their space. A secret 'Home Guard' protects Virga from incursions from outside, from something known as 'Artificial life'. The focus of this installment shifts to Pacquaea, a nation with no Sun of its own. What is does have is a University, which employs Leal Maspeth as a History tutor, who has hopes of being a Lecturer. It also has a sect of 'Eternists' who deny Virga's history and take power with a view to eradicating all dissent. Leal finds herself at the epicentre of the storm, especially after Hayden Griffin, the famous 'Sunlighter' from earlier books arrives, just after a giant 'Voice' is heard from the exterior Wall and ships start vanishing...Leal is instrumental in finding out what is going on, combining her knowledge of ancient texts with encounters with entities that the Eternists deny. We learn more about Virga and its strange neighbours and the scene seems to be set for a larger conflict than just human squabbling...

[kalyka_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Sunless Countries, being the fourth installment of the Virga series, is now set in the country of Abyss, where the sun literally doesn't shine. Being too far from any sun, let alone Candesce, the Sun of Suns, Abyss, and many others, are plunged in perpetual darkness and winter. The streets are lit with lamps, travellers are guided by road ropes, and it is amazingly easy for one to get lost in the dark.It is in this setting that we meet Leal Maspeth, a teaching assistant of the history department of University of Sere, Abyss' capital city. Her professional and personal life are about to be disrupted by, amongst other things, the referendum held by the Eternists, and the arrival of the sun lighter, Hayden Griffin, who was one of the main characters in Sun of Suns.The Eternists are an extremist religious faction that believe that Virga is eternal, and are ready to persecute any and all that diverge from this belief. After the referendum, the history department is shut down, and the University library is closed. Censor is rampant, and there are now mandatory polls in the newspaper asking if the population at large should consider a certain article as truth.On top of that, danger is looming. Entire cities have been disappearing, and no one really knows how, or why. Sere's navy investigates the causes, but ultimately, it will be up to Miss Maspeth to find out.Shroeder, in this fourth installment, has introduced a new protagonist, who is full of intelligence, charm, and most of all, humanity. She has real fears, and real courage and determination, as is proved throughout the novel.On the other hand, Hayden Griffin, while also very human, can be very naive at times, almost to the point of being childlike. Unfortunately, he's also an idiot, even as he is regarded as a hero. He doesn't want to get mixed up in the politics, and when the conflict between Virga and the high-tech Artificial nature finally start heating up, he takes the easy path and adopts a "shoot before asking questions" stance. It's up to Leal to step up to the plate and find answers. And step up she does.Unlike the first three installments, the supporting characters are very underwhelming, barring two exceptions. For the most part, they were uninteresting almost to the point of being cliched, and well, bland.The plot, while interesting for the most part, is filled with political intrigue, which Leal is unwillingly sucked into, and its unfortunate omnipresence is almost suffocating. Even if it is intriguing to see how the new political scene affects the protagonist,the normal citizen, and a country as a whole, it's almost sad to see the story almost submerged in it.This fourth installment of the Virga series isn't necessarily a sequel and would make a good standalone, if one were so inclined to read only this one. The world of Virga, yet again, is described with depth, and the story also ventures in the world outside the Great Balloon, which was only hinted at in the Sun of Suns by Aubry Mahallan. However, the story's conclusion gave me the sense that things were left unfinished, when they should be.3.5/5

[billhall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I only recently discovered Karl Schroeder's writing, beginning with Sun of Suns, the fourth (and I hope not the last) book in the Virga series. Schroeder is a consumate story teller and has created a fascinatingly bizarre ecology that is entirely entirely consistent and plausible given the initial assumptions (that we only learn gradually through the four books). Each of the four books stands alone, with its own set of lead characters. However, by reading the stories in sequence we can begin to infer some things about Virga and its history.In these days when fantasy dominates, this series is hard science-based fiction. The stories in this series takes place in a gas-filled non-rotating spherical habitat orbiting around Sirius called Virga that has all the necessities of life for the development of complex - but weightless ecosystems. Humans have built cities where artificial gravity necessary for health is maintained by building the main residential and commercial areas inside rotating wheels (the imagery created in the mind's eye is stunning), and light and heat are provided by dozens or hundreds of artificial thermonuclear suns maintained by different nations, and a central sun called Candesce.The technology level within Virga is limited to what some would call steam punk because Candesce - the central sun inhibits complex electronics. This is for some very good reasons that we only come to understand towards the end of this book, whose main plot is built around the conflicts between rational science and irrational beliefs. There is also an argument for the power of scientific rationality over evolutionary artificial intelligence (i.e., the post-singularity kind).Of the four books so far, this one carries the most weight as it provides deep and satisfying explanations for some of the conundrums raised by this weird and wonderful environment (better in many ways even than Hal Clement's environments is Mission of Gravity and Close to Critical). However, the Virga universe still offers many opportunities for further stories.Unlike some series that become exceedingly formulaic as they grow, where Schroeder is concerned, each book has been better than the last.

[slothman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We return to the world of Virga, this time in the sunless nation of Abyss, far from the fusion-powered lights. Abyss is in the dark, but has plenty of history, and Leal Maspeth is a teacher of history under a regime that is (in a commentary on some of the crazier politics of our time?) trying to put facts up to a vote. Just when the Abyssal government is trying to deny history, ancient history shows up in the form of the ancient struggles for power in the Vega system, on whose outskirts Virga orbits, and Leal is the only person in position to figure out the right move for the small outpost of humanity that is Virga. We manage to find out more about the world outside Virga, expanding on the hints in earlier volumes.Schroeder keeps up the swashbuckling action of the Virga books (and brings back Hayden Griffin from the earlier tales) while outlining sobering possibilities that should serve as caution to gung-ho transhumanists and extropians. I was a bit disappointed that one of the important revelatory sequences was done as telling rather than showing, but I can see that doing proper showing would have interrupted the pace of the book.